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Community Founders

CARMELA POLLOCK is a devoted wife and mother who actively supports a number of organisations and institutions providing support to mental health caregivers across Australia. Specialising as a consultant in the Information Technology field for over twenty years, Carmela was born and bred in Melbourne, Australia where she graduated from Melbourne University with a degree in Social Sciences. Her life revolves around family, friendship, mental health and women’s health advocacy as well as enjoying her hobby farm.

A passionate learner, she retrained, gaining certification in alternative therapies and offers assistance to people with mental health challenges as well as general health and wellness through her practice Soulworks Essential Therapies.

Carmela is intent on bringing mental health out of the shadows as recovery requires a team effort, and no one should struggle in isolation. Drawing on two decades of life experience supporting her husband with depression, mental health advocate and alternative therapy specialist, her current project ‘A Black Dog About The House’ is designed to open the conversation for carers and people suffering from mental illness.

If there is one thing that she believes more than anything, it is that there is hope; that there is a possibility of living a fulfilled life despite depression with the support and compassion of those that support them.

Her current voluntary projects see her advocating the role of a Mental Health Champion, providing support through her work with Beyondblue. She is also an expert panel member developing guidelines for family and close friends of adults with major depressive disorder for Deakin University in Melbourne.

MIRIAM E. MILES is a writer with a passion to see the mental health dynamic shift in Australia. Her personal journey includes a 25 year battle with anxiety, depression, misdiagnosis and trying to find her best self and raise a family in amongst it all. Without her faith and the staunch support of her husband and immediate family who have ridden through every storm with her, she would not be the woman she is today. Her personal journey carries into everything she writes and she hopes to inspire, empower and motivate others to open the conversation about mental health.

Miriam classifies herself as a multipotentialite, and has a work history to show for it. Interesting and creative pursuits have included working in jewelry sales, tutoring music students, penning three eBooks, a poetry anthology, six music albums and project managing self publishing author journeys. She is currently writing Reconciled, an autobiographical fiction that follows a family searching for answers to a mystery that reveals itself in a life changing event, forcing them to come to terms with the past, present and future and choosing reconciliation over past regrets.

Because Miriam has a dual level of experience in the area of mental illness and wellbeing, both being cared for and being a carer for her own family member, she is able to understand the dichotomy of being on both sides of this two edged sword and brings a unique voice to the discussion of support, exposure and education.